Australia is planning changes to its privacy rules so banks can be more quickly alerted to cyber attacks on companies, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Monday after hackers attacked Australia’s second-largest telecommunications firm. Optus, owned by Singapore Telecommunications Ltd, exposed databases containing the home addresses, driver’s licenses and passport numbers of up to 10 million customers – about 40% of Australia’s population – last week in one of the country’s biggest data breaches.
The company said the attacker’s IP address – a computer’s unique identifier – appeared to have moved between countries in Europe. She declined to provide details on how the attacker breached her security. Calling it a “massive breach” and a “huge wake-up call” for the corporate sector, Albanese said there are some state actors and criminal organizations that want access to people’s data.
“We want to make sure that … that we change some of the privacy provisions there so that if people are caught like that, the banks can be notified so they can protect their customers as well,” Albanese told the radio station. 4 BC The federal government is planning reforms that would require businesses to alert banks when customer data is compromised so lenders can monitor affected accounts for suspicious activity, Australian media have reported.
Cyber ​​Security Minister Clare O’Neill said at the weekend that further details of the changes would be announced by the government “in the coming days”. Australia is looking to strengthen its cyber defences, pledging in 2020 to spend A$1.66 billion ($1.1 billion) over a decade to strengthen the network infrastructure of businesses and homes.
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